The likelihood of an average American agreeing that world temperatures are rising is strongly affected by the name used for the phenomenon. Americans believe strongly in "climate change", but acceptance that "global warming" is taking place is much less common.
In a recent study carried out by psychologists in Michigan, 2,267 US …

COMMENTS

Page:

Words do matter

Of course words matter. I think everybody would agree that world temperatures have been changing over the last 100 years, climate change is a reality that has in fact been happening constantly through the last 100 thousand years. "Global warming" is more strongly associated with the change being man made and abnormal for which the science is far less convincing.

@42

He's got a point on wording though. Climate change is generally associated in the media with non man-made alterations/affects and global warming is generally associated with man-made and Govt taxes. The term used has already been polarised in the media and so the person being surveyed will often be expressing their belief of man-made or not depending on the term used. Hence "I believe in climate change but not global warming". Global warming also implies a one-way street though whereas climate change sounds more like "shit happens".

Is it just me or is it warm in here?

"Only to those who have fallen for the sceptics propaganda. I have yet to see a sceptic claim that is not thoroughly debunked."

Depends what you read. I've yet to see a sceptic's OR zealot's claim that the other side hasn't debunked, then the original side claiming that it hasn't and that the other side uses pseudo science, and only idiots believe THEM because anyone can SEE we're right, etc, etc. Ad nauseum.

I feel sorry for both sides and only actively hate the lying, trough-snouting scientists that lied to produce results their paymasters wanted, and thus muddied the whole issue to the point it's a high-finance slanging match where both sides know they are right and the other side all smell of wee. Deadlock that may kill us all (either naturally or by our own hand depending on your standpoint).

@Dave Cradle

"I feel sorry for both sides and only actively hate the lying, trough-snouting scientists that lied to produce results their paymasters wanted"

Examples, please, or your rather emotive statement is nothing more than hot air. If I recall correctly, the whole 'climategate' thing was started by a Daily Telegraph journo deliberately misrepresenting a scientific paper on a blog, and using hyperbole to get readers. 9God forbid any journalist would ever do such a thing). The issue in question revolved around two different proxies being used for temperature measurements on the same graph. These were originally clearly labelled, with an explanation of why the later measurements were shown from a more accurate source, whereas the earlier measurements were only available from a less accuret source. In teh interests of journalistic style, the journal in question ('Science', I believe) chose to remove the explanation of this. The Telegraph journalist then used this to jump on the paper and claim that the data awas somehow fiddled. Following on from this, the emails of the scinetists involved in writing the paper were subsequently hacked by climate-change deniers and trawled through for 'evidence' of untoward behaviour of teh scientist concerned. What they turned up was that these scientists were unwilling to reveal the sources of their data to certain individuals from the denialist lobby who had been continually requesting specific data. These scientists (quite rightly, in my opinion) reasoned that they wanted this data so that they could deliberately misrepresent it to the press, thus helping their paymasters (i.e. oil companies and others with a financial interest in no action being taken against global warming).

If all of that soudns like a conspiracy, just remember that this is pretty much exactly the same tactic as used by the tobacco lobby back when tobacco companies used to deny that smoking causes cancer. Do you think that the people at the agencies involced went out of business, or decided to take pay to go after different targets instead?

Unfortunately, climate change is a politically charged subject, because there are those in positions of power who stand to lose out if measures are taken to limit its effect. If you think that these people wouldn't engage in campaigns of FUD, then you are very naïve. Equally unfortunately, most scientists are also naïve in a political sense, and those in question didn't even realise that they were playing the game until they had already lost. It depresses me that so many people still believe the FUD that has been spread around even though it has been shown to be such. Basically, what it comes down to is that there is either a conspiracy (or conspiracies) by a small number of people (probably numbered in the hundreds or thousands) who have a financial interest in public opinion and political influence, or that there is a much larger conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of scientists throughout the world, with no clear goals.

Hi pot, meet kettle!

Sorry, but your argument holds no water. You basically said exactly what Dave before you said but in reverse and a lot more condescending.

There are people on BOTH sides that stand to gain from it either being false or true.

You like to point out how oil companies and the like will save money by not having to change. However all those green initiatives aren't free and there are billions of dollars floating around in that camp as well.

Regardless, the point remains that no one has a clear answer yet and anyone who does is lying.

you're wrong

Climate change is caused by global warming. If you don't believe in science than stop using your cellphone, your GPS, and car because you must not "believe" in those things either. And if there's anyone with an agenda, it's the oil companies. In fact, alot of the posters here trying to say "the science is sketchy" either work for oil-funded PR firms or they're just angry anarchists.

Tampering in God's Domain

And whatever you want to call it, we will never know what causes climate change, because any time humans try to launch a satellite to get useful data that would help answer that question, the hand of god swats it down. Cower, puny mortals!

Seems that way

Well

Not sure about you, but I hear "man-made global warming" much more than "man-made climate change". Perhaps the Republicans are less likely to believe we're causing the climate to change and penalise the "global warming" phrase as a result?

I guess also climate change doesn't say which way it's going. Maybe we've had a few cold winters in Texas lately! ;)

You'll find it's the scientists who have changed their language, and the media have simply been paying slightly more attention than you. I know it's an Appeal to Authority, an instant -1 on the intarwebs, but I'll take NASA over your inane dribblings:

the science is pretty clear

Humans burn fossil carbon in the form of coal, oil, etc. This increases the quantity of atmospheric CO2 compared to not doing so. CO2 molecules present in the atmosphere absorb more solar energy than C(O2) buried underground. Therefore more CO2 in the atmosphere leads to more solar energy being retained, leads to global atmospheric warming.

Exactly how that global (atmospheric) warming relates to and creates changes in the climate, it's hard to say because it's a very complex system which is still being mapped out. But that the planet is warmer now than it would be if humans hadn't spent the last hundred years burning gigatonnes of fossil fuels is clear to pretty much anyone with high-school-level understanding of chemistry or physics.

No it's not

There are a number of unstated assumptions in your model that are not self-evident. For a start "CO2" is an analogue used for all greenhouse gasses - not just CO2 so the causation you illustrate is not strictly true.

The models are not consistent in producing predictions or extrapolating current condidtions from historical data.

The historical data set is incomplete and relies on a number of different temperature proxies, which are constantly being tuned closer to reality as we better understand the history of the system.

The planet has been warming and cooling at varying rates since it's creation, extracting the impact of the anthropocene era is non-trivial.

I have university level physics and chemistry and it isn't clear to me at all - although I have a precautionary bent, am pretty much convinced by the science that our activities are influencing climate and act accordingly to limit my peronal "carbon footprint" - I know better educated people who are less convinced.

This is even before considering the complexities of whether there is a tipping point beyond which the situation becomes irrecoverable and where that tipping point may be; if we have the resources to prevent the system becoming chaotic, what state the system is likely to settle into after becoming turbulent and if it would be survivable by something that would emerge at the other side of the event and still be called "human"; whether we should be devoting scarce resources to prevention or mitigation, etc.

If the science was at all clear then decisive measures could be taken but as it stands no government can take anything other than contradictory speculation to it's electorate to argue in favour of many of the hard decisions that are sure to be required to ensure the survival of our civilisation and species in the coming centuries so all we have is half measures and prevarication at every level from the personal to the global...

Re: the science is pretty clear

"But that the planet is warmer now than it would be if humans hadn't spent the last hundred years burning gigatonnes of fossil fuels is clear to pretty much anyone with high-school-level understanding of chemistry or physics."

It always amazes me how easy it is to convince armchair scientists with who only possess a rudimentary understanding of school level science that some pet theory or other is beyond doubt.

All you need to do is flatter their ego by making them think they are somehow an expert.

Unfortunately the fate of this subject is being decided by people who are either too ignorant or complacent to even look at the available evidence and methods used let alone understand it's potential impact on any claimed findings.

Yes it is

As stated in the previous post, the science really is pretty clear: an atmosphere with a high percentage of CO2 will retain a greater percentage of the sun's energy than an atmosphere with a low percentage of CO2. That much really _is_ very clear, and can be tested in a high-school laboratory (in summary: an IR camera cannot see a candle when looking through a glass cylinder filled with CO2, but can when the cylinder is filled with normal air)

Yes, it's true that mathematical models are still improving and at this stage we cannot answer all questions definitively, and there is disagreement about what the magnitude and nature of the effects. But the science WRT CO2 and IR radiation is really very clear.

While I agree, without wishing to be too contentious and 'off topic'....

When Science is devalued in the education system by having 'creationism' taught as an equally valid explanation for development of planetary life as 'evolution' I wouldn't start with high school level of eduction as a baseline for understanding and evaluation of something as sophisticated as 'Global warming' or 'Climate Change'.

I respect Americans for their achievements but I wish some more politicians and administrators at home and aboard would grow a little spine and start pushing back against the specious pseudo technical nonsense that is the scientific foundation of 'Creationism'. Religion has a place in education but, IMHO, it is not in scientific evaluation. The link between Republicans and 'Creationism' is a bit too strong to be ignored. We'll be going the way of the Taliban all to soon if we're not vigilant.

Anonymous believer

"to say because it's a very complex system which is still being mapped out. But that the planet is warmer now than it would be if humans hadn't spent the last hundred years burning gigatonnes of fossil fuels is clear to pretty much anyone with high-school-level understanding of chemistry or physics"

If that's what passes for logic, then no wonder people believe in Leprechauns.

For your "it is pretty clear that..." replace with "I have faith that..."

Re:Yes it is

Maybe some of the AGW comes from the scientists running all their climate models - bet that takes some compute power. Perhaps they should stop running them and see if the planet cools down a little? Say a token 10 year hiatus?

Computer models are not reality

Your little 'experiment' has just shown that we don't have a problem with CO2 as a greenhouse gas, because your glass cylinder containing air also contained atmosphere CO2.

If you wanted to test an atmospheric CO2 rise of some large percentage it would make very little difference because an enormous percentage rise in bugger all is still bugger all (atmospheric CO2 is approx 390 ppm making it 0.039% of air, why don't you try a 100 percent increase of CO2 to 0.078% of air in your glass jar and see how little difference that makes).

If you want to pretend that we might have a problem with warming if our whole atmosphere was CO2 I can tell you we wouldn't be around to notice it - I didn't need to model that.

You can create computer models to give any result you want from almost any data - ask UEA - but unless the models have a direct relation to real experimental data they are useless for making policy, especially SCAMMER* policies committing our civilisation to direct resources and technology away from real problems.

ROFL...

Okay...

"As stated in the previous post, the science really is pretty clear: an atmosphere with a high percentage of CO2 will retain a greater percentage of the sun's energy than an atmosphere with a low percentage of CO2. That much really _is_ very clear, and can be tested in a high-school laboratory (in summary: an IR camera cannot see a candle when looking through a glass cylinder filled with CO2, but can when the cylinder is filled with normal air)"

So, point 1: IR cameras see Infra Red light, not HEAT. Thermal cameras are needed for that. So your example only shows that CO2 blocks certain wave forms of light. What you need to do is show how it absorbs and holds heat instead. That means measuring the temperature of the gas before exposure to sunlight, and then again after and comparing that to the same measurements using normal air.

Good try, though.

Point 2: If CO2 and other greenhouse gasses are absorbing heat in the atmosphere then it's not getting down to the surface, is it? So that would mean the surface would be cooling, not heating... and thank the French for that one: They worked out that Air pollution was responsible for lower surface temperatures and that the clean air act had caused a significant surface temperature rise as more heat from the sun could actually reach the planet surface.

Hmm... could it be that man has been forcing a global cooling and now we've stopped, things are reverting to how they should be?

no

"an enormous percentage rise in bugger all is still bugger all (atmospheric CO2 is approx 390 ppm making it 0.039% of air, why don't you try a 100 percent increase of CO2 to 0.078% of air in your glass jar and see how little difference that makes)."

You can't just assume a doubling of concentration of something has no effect. By that logic a "bugger all" amount of plutonium would have no effect when ingested.

For a start you are wrong about the "bugger all" thing. 99.9% of gasses in the atmosphere have no greenhouse effect so CO2s effect is far larger than it's concentration in air would suggest (and in fact the "suggest" is a logical flaw you make to assume small quantities must have small effects)

The effect of doubling CO2 in this case is calculated to be about 3C warming. Now 3C warming above the current global temperature of 288K is only about a 1% temperature increase. You could say that a 1% increase in global temperature is bugger all.

In which case why deny that a bugger all increase in CO2 could cause a bugger all increase in temperature anyway?

And the crux is that the biosphere is very sensititive to bugger all changes in temperature. 3C might be 1% of global temperature, but we all know our planet occupies a tight range of habitability.

Indeed..

"However, a student of history can tell you that it has been warmer in past times than it is now, and human burning of fossil fuels has had nothing to do with those periods."

Frustratingly enough, archaeological evidence & primary historical records are dismissed as "anecdotal" and "unscientific" by those who wish to play down pre-industrial climate change.

If I was a historian or an archaeologist, I'd be royalled peeved by the way the scientists treat evidence which they *should* be using to sanity check their models & theories.

Check out this 1999 article from the Independent - before it was anathema to say the olden days were warmer. How much more fun it was when you could just think it was neat that the Romans grew grapes in Lincolnshire, without getting shouted at by angry people!

BraveOak demos Warmist/SCAMMER methods

Nice going - I criticise a specific staged-for-effect lab 'experiment' and you keep my criticisms but change the context. I guess if I wrote that I'm sorry you're so transparent you'd portray that as an apology; you don't happen to write for the Grauniad, do you?

Don't forget the oceans

Apparently as the oceans warm up, the water can't hold on to as much CO2 (much the same way as cold fizzy drinks hold on to more gas than warm fizzy drinks). So as the oceans warm they will release more CO2 into the atmosphere, which leads to temperature increase, which leads to the ocean getting warmer and giving up more CO2, etc.....

... or the icecaps

That's right

I would have thought that oceanic CO2 would have been a crucial measure, along with the age of the carbon by carbon dating. With all the effort we have to learn that oceanic CO2 is increasing whenever a significant coral gets sick. They are not trying.

But to the main point, 'climate change' is neutral whereas 'global warming' requires a response.

"could lead to an ice age"

Wrong questions

If you ask the wrong questions you get meaningless answers. Climate change is obvious and has been going on for about 4 billion years, sometimes warmer and sometimes colder. The scientists I have heard say that the northern areas of both Europe and North America were submerged in ice about 40,000 years ago. Where is that ice now? There is scoring in the rocks of Central Park in New York City that indicate three periods when very deep glaciers were present there. The ice comes and goes. Most scientists say the last ice age ended about 12,000 years ago. Why did it end? Were the cave people burning too much wood? Maybe it had something to do with a natural cycle. The cyclic charts going back millions of years say that we are now on an upswing getting warmer, similar to the previous cycles.

Is the climate getting warmer? I would say yes. Will it continue to get warmer? Yes, regardless of what we do or do not do. The case for manmade global warming is unproven at best and a fraud at worst. Certainly methane and carbon dioxide are greenhouse gases but whether they are the TOTAL cause of the warming is certainly not proven and is in fact highly unlikely. Water vapor is a high proportion of the GHGs in our atmosphere and there are probably some other elements active also.

As for the scurrilous implication that conservatives are easily led, the opposite interpretation is more likely, that the anthropogenic global warming cultists have drunk the Koolaid and are beyond help, while the conservatives study the science and make up their own minds. A little skepticism is also apparent in that conservatives generally do not wish to destroy their nation's economy for fruitless causes. Think about it: if the nations do nothing and the earth gets warmer (as I believe it will), the AGW cultists will castigate everyone for doing nothing. If the AGW cultists are allowed to rob the economies of nations for their scam, and the earth gets warmer, they will say we did not do enough. They are in a "Heads I win, tails you lose" scam.

AGW cultists say "Stop climate change!" Why are they so sure the present climate is the very best climate there can be and changes are not desired? I am still waiting for the answer as to why the last ice age ended.

conservatives easily led

A left-wing creationist?

But plenty on the Left believe in the End Times, for which sinful mankind is responsible. They believe this on various unproved hypotheses, with faith filling in the gaps where evidence, logic and reason should be.

semantics

I hate to say it but...........

Obama is a bought and paid for DENIER now.

Obama didn’t even mention the climate change crisis in his State of the Union Address and IPCC funding has been pulled by the Republican voted majority. Carbon markets have collapsed and world governments have walked away from the scientific warnings of unstoppable warming.

So why are these scientists not marching in the streets about this crisis and why are they not at least acting like this is as planetary emergency? Shouldn’t they be on CNN and Oprha? Why is the world not treating this CO2 climate crisis like the emergency the UN says it is?

I’ve never felt comfortable telling our children that CO2 is going to cause out of control warming for them or their children so should we reconsider this whole issue of CO2 causing pollution still?

What now? Is the climate change movement sustainable for another 25 years?

Taxpayer: "This lunch special was just an excellent meal. Will you be serving it again next week?"

Climate Scientist: "We don't have a menu for next week but we do have a menu for the year 2153."

Why did the globull WARmer cross the road?

She was being chased by a UFO.

How many climate scientists to change a light bulb?

None, but they DO have consensus that it WILL change!

REAL planet loves are happy and relieved the crisis is averted.

REAL Liberals don't bow to fat American politicians promising to lower the seas and make the weather colder with TAXES.

REAL civilized people don't threaten their kids with a CO2 death, just to get them to turn the lights out more often.

REAL civilized people spread love, not fear of SAVE THE PLANET.

Meanwhile, the UN had allowed carbon trading to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over a quarter of a century of climate control instead of needed population control.

Taxpayer: " There is a fly in my soup."

Climate Scientist: "Strange, considering you eat up just about anything else we dish out to you."

Taxpayer: "This lunch special was great. Will you be serving it again next week?"

Climate Scientist: "We don't have a menu for next week, but we DO have a menu for the year 2153."

Why did the climate change believer cross the road?

He left his purse on the other side.

Taxpayer: “I’ll have a bowl of climate change please but can you heat it up this time?

Climate Scientists are to Science as: what abusive priests and suicide bombers are to organized religion.

How many climate scientists does it take to change a light bulb?

None, but they DO have consensus that it WILL change!

What do you call someone who condemns their very own children to a “death by CO2” and then bows obediently to a fat American politician promising to lower the seas and make the weather colder with taxes?

A Climate Change believer.

What do you call sitting in the dark for an hour once a year for Earth Hour with the lights turned out, texting friends, smoking pot and warming up a frozen pizza in the oven?

I Saw the Light, and it opened up my eyes.

Obama didn’t even mention the climate change crisis in his State of the Union Address. Without political support, the CO2 theory is dead. And we might want to consider that IPCC funding has been pulled by the Republican voted majority as carbon markets collapsed and world governments have walked away from the scientific warnings of unstoppable warming. So why are these scientists not marching in the streets about this crisis and why are they not at least acting like this is as planetary emergency? Shouldn’t they be on CNN and Oprha? Why is the world not treating this CO2 climate crisis like the emergency the UN says it is?

I’ve never felt comfortable telling our children that CO2 is going to cause out of control warming for them or their children so should we reconsider this whole issue of CO2 causing pollution still? What ever climate change “was”, its over now. If you don’t know that the now former believer majority voters will not vote yes to taxing the air to save the planet, YOU are the new denier. Continued support is dividing environmental efforts and not helping anyone. It’s a lost cause now. Get ahead of the curve and fight pollution and fight this Disco science that’s wasting more and more valuable recourses at the cost of social reforms. How about: Population Control? Is the climate change movement sustainable for another 25 years? Of course not. And besides, wouldn't real planet lovers be happy a crisis was averted? The worst crisis ever for mankind and the planet was not real, be happy, not disappointed, Why did we so flippantly condemn our kids to a death by CO2 like fear mongering neocons based solely on lab coat consultants we bowed to like sheep? We have to move on.